I Am Hunter
by Rinaru007
Summary: During an Expedition, the regiment discovers a titan-less forest. They encounter a steel blue titan, promising to show them how worthless this 'World' is. The titan was once a child, now he's Hunter.


**One: Safe Haven**

In the cold distance, enveloped by lush evergreen bushes and elderly trees wrought with aged scars. Their arms outstretched to the sky as if calling for an impossible prayer. They basked in the chilled breeze of the early morning, quaint among early songbirds. Spanning tens of metres below their tipped branching spires, laid an anomaly of the soul.

This soul, having wandered so many Worlds, now slouched discontentedly against the rough texture of a towering tree. Despite being aged with wisdom, its instincts belched out a single growl, immediately ceasing all movement. Its beast-like eyes of translucent amber aggressively fixated upon strange creatures of the cruelest kind; humans. It immediately crawled under a covered bush- slit eyes curious, tapered ears flat against its head.

Chaotic thunders of hooves and mechanical machines whirred endlessly, zipping the minuscule humans across vast distances like strange birds. Their backs sported proud counterfeit wings, splayed as an emblem across the tanned leather of their jackets. The beast dampened its growls, distantly curious of their strange actions; never had these wall-dwelling humans ventured so dangerously far into the Forest.

For days, the humans travelled by horseback and their strange contraptions, deftly avoiding mindless hordes of humanoid creatures which wandered the forest floor. The beast briefly flickered back to a time where undead virus-infected bodies rose, piling onto each other to reach the next host.

The group thundered past the shadowed thick foliage of bushes, completely overlooking the predator among the foliage.

It waited for the group to pass, until the sounds faded like a distant memory. With a quiet grunt, clawed fingers spread apart the branches, gazing in the direction of the humans in silence.

For it was once Human, but no longer.

Permanently word-forming mute with missing lips, it would never be able to utter words to a human. Although, the beast wondered if the Humans came to exterminate the wandering piles of disproportionate humanoids.

With a snort, it turned away.

* * *

Each soldier had gradually lost their Titan vigour. Their eyes dulled from the endless trip- each upward swing of the manoeuvre gear a distant relief among sore limbs. They didn't dare complain, staying in rigid formations, prepared just in case of Titans; not that they'd seen any for the past few days.

Nearing the rear of the group, three groups of horseback followed with thundering steps of tall stallions— one in particular which stood out was the smallest among them, wearing an unlikeable scowl since the corps had first ever seen him.

_Titans. _He internally spat. Unwilling to imagine their hideous deformed proportions and their lazy grins- sharpening at the sight of people to swallow and vomit back up. Fucking hell, he'd had enough of these damn titans. Dirty, _unclean-_

No. He'd once labelled and listed each still alive soldier with their flaws, and it'd taken absolutely days for his mind to stop referring to specific rookies as 'Mudroll' or 'Table Thief'. They'd died on the way.

The thundering of the horses' hooves drowned out any white noise of rustling leaves, leaving only the visuals of faint blue mist in front. His coal-like eyes dissected their surroundings, already used to the mist. They'd recently discovered the new area with, surprisingly, no titans. They rarely met titans of any kind within a wide radius of the quaint blue-misted forest.

Which was exactly why they were here, _mapping _out this potentially dangerous forest and where the epicentre was.

Because Hange Zoe was a fucking idiot with shitty glasses.

With a dark scowl, he deliberately turned away from the no doubt stinking woman who led the group directly next to him. Her adamant requests of scouting the area and '_potentially'_ figure out a way to ward titans away gave her the go ahead to bring the entire Scout Regiment along with her suicidal mission and crooked life priorities.

He knew, with clarity, that any place that was too quaint usually resulted in high death counts due to an unsuspected ambush. He'd been there, and most certainly came out looking like a sore bruise and wounded pride- but most of all, loss of lives.

* * *

The River, it mused, was an interesting place. There was a constant motion of rippling waters, revealing glints of multicoloured fins and wide almost unseeing fisheyes. Most of all, was the easy reflection it showed of its beastly image cast back with apathetic carelessness.

Its mouth, stemmed from one side of its face to the other, allowed easy access for flesh to be shredded and mercilessly ground into a sloppy mess of red by mountain-ridged teeth. Nose pointed and face slightly extended forward, a pair of slit golden eyes tracked each and every movement within its sight.

Colour... was a beautiful aspect of life the beast was utterly awed by. The metallic glint of goldfish scales, the delicate hues of butterfly wings and harmonic chirps of a songbird-

A distant _SNAP! _shocked every creature in the vicinity, ears and senses shooting forward for the universal signal to flee for safety.

_SNAP! _

The low growl that broke through its widening snarl left the entire riverside deathly still, until everything skittered away into their safe covens. More sounds of metallic snapping and the reeling of cords drew ominously closer, until it was a scarce few meters from the beast's position, large cat-like ears stretched and shifted back, a wide snarl began to bloom like forgotten daisies among cracked pavement.

The horses and flying humans broke through the dense forest. Accompanied by agitated whines of frightened horses.

Meeting a very angered, threatened and ferocious Titan.

* * *

"_Shit!_"

A loud, ear-shattering _roar _screeched its way across the short distance between man and beast, the group immediately splitting into two— one unresponsive, staring into menacing amber.

"_Take cover!" _A sharp command broke the trembling air, a broad shouldered man with neatly parted hair, almost screamed out the words with forced urgency laced into his voice, shaking the entire regiment back into focus. They shot off with the high speed whirring of steel cords, unsheathing of blades and determined gazes following orders of a hero reluctant to die. The horses spun around and sharply whinnied, instinctively feeling the murderous intent.

The Titan had strange frost-hued skin stretching over wide expanses of muscle before viciously widening into a gaping cavern lined with icicle-sharp bones arranged into an effective weapon of ripping flesh. Its pointed ears flattened, flush against its scalp of wild greyish hair as eerie eyes of promised pain spilled from amber gaze like a blazing wildfire; nature's borderline perfect killing machine.

The Survey Corps looped around, leaping into swaying leaves to hide behind nature. The Commander was silent, watching the new type of Titan with steel eyes, carefully deducing, strategising.

The Riverside was suddenly a deserted area of ill silence, broken only by the whispers of slinking water. Both sides stilled, adrenaline rumbling through their cold veins adorned with trembling limbs.

The beast's ears shot up, humans jerking away with lightning reaction and once again backing further into the trees. The Titan was a still statue, ears angling forward like a particularly large and curious feline. Its body huffed, each rise and fall of its chest sent steam trailing out of its distorted mouth.

"What's it do—" A hand suddenly clamped on the mouth, they watched with bated breath as an ear pivoted onto their direction. A flash of its eyes dominated their vocal chords.

A large foot raised, quietly settling among the tall grass. Another, and another. Its eyes were stilled trained ahead, staring into the mist with expanded wide pupils; they almost engulfing the brilliant blood orange hue of its iris. It reached the tree line with no sound, and it struck a certain perplexed scientist that it was exactly like a silent predator.

Closer it stepped. Slowly and steadily it made its way almost past the practically forgotten tree-soldiers. As it came closer, the scientist—with silently sparkling eyes— could observe its strange proportions. As common as it was to observe other more-normal Titans with disproportionate limbs which held _crystal clear _disadvantages... this Titan barely resembled one.

It had leg length which exceeds the height of its torso and head _combined_, with lean-muscled arms probably the same length as its legs; exactly like an animal. The facial features alone distantly resemble a feline, and head shape a long nose and mouth—which is one of the most distinctive features of a human against animal.

"**NOW**!"

As a group, the entire Corps descended unto the Beast like scavengers, many cords plunging into trees. The Titan startled, head snapping up, snarl forming as their blades near the skin.

_Clink CLInk cliNKclINk_

The Titan batted the futile blades away with an annoyed growl, eyes still darting to the mist—_what was even in there?_— while blades simultaneously shatter or dangerously bend against _steel skin_.

The Famed Captain suddenly flung out, maneuvering his speed with amazing agility as he gathered momentum around the still Titan. With a grunt, the black haired figure lurched up and curved into a sharp dive; straight at the nape. His blades were outstretched, aimed perfectly—

A pair of wide animalistic wine-amber swung around to face its tiny attacker with teeth exposed, the cavern curling up to smile like a _FUCKING CREE—_

_THUD_

Multiple shouts of alarm suddenly rang out, calling for a suddenly not visible captain encased in slender blue fingers. The steel-hued hand suddenly flew onto the ground, opening to deposit a still body into tall grass with a smile showcasing a devious lipless smirk. They stared into the strange expression, muscles seizing in terror as they watched the unmoving gap between the grass.

The Titan turned and stampeded away, each loud footstep speeding up as they thundering across the grass, angrily flattening blades of evergreen grass. The soldiers kept still, watching the black slit trained within unseeing mist until it sped right away past them without a second thought. Thundering sound-waves echoing further and further into the distance.

In unison, eyes darted around for orders, an explanation. A single questioned thought wordlessly shared between every soldier and in particular, a scientist in overjoyed hysterics visibly _cackling_, and a silent commander.

A medic immediately dived down, landing into the grass and beelined straight to the expected corpse of Levi Ackerman. He bent down and began his first mandatory tests, hands trembling as he carefully pressed against the throat to check for any possibility of life. Feeling a strong pulse, relief and panic kicked into his voice, the medic shot up, _"SURVIVOR! EMERGENCY CART!"_

A squad full of medics began to carry the Captain, hollering orders to each other to Keep. This. Goddamn. Man. **ALIVE.**

The flurry of movement prompted the rest of the squads and leaders to deliriously wonder, "_What the **fuck **was that?"_

Thank you for reading! Appreciated if you favourite or review this story :)

Apologies for OOCness, lack of canon storyline memory, everything, etc.

**Image used for Cover: _Beginning Watercolor: Starting With Trees _by _Quarto Knows _[half certain Shibasaki-sensei drew this]**

**I do not own ****Attack on Titan/進撃の巨人. ****It belongs to its rightful authors. **

**Added Words: June 29, 2020. 2:58:38PM Mon P6 Histoire**


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